Friday, October 3, 2025

Week of Oct 6th

                                                           

Volume: XIII
Issue: 7
October 6, 2025
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MESSAGE

As we move through the fall and I continue my classroom visits and evaluations across all content areas and grade levels, I want to share a couple of key instructional trends I'm noticing. These observations cut across many classrooms and represent areas of tremendous potential for student growth and deepening our practice. 

First, I'm seeing a lot of excellent teaching, and your lesson plans are consistently aligned to standards. Also, you all are building an incredible foundation. Our classroom climates are full of warmth, joy, and love. The care and commitment you show to creating safe and welcoming spaces is palpable in every grade level. I've also seen widespread and increasingly stronger implementation of instructional routines (in particular, Notice & Wonder and So Basically), which is a testament to your collective focus on making thinking visible. These are the powerful elements we absolutely want to hold on to and strengthen. Our next focus for a significant area for growth is in maximizing opportunities for genuine, substantive student discourse to increase student intellectual engagement.

In many lessons, I see teachers posing high-quality questions, but the follow-up often involves short student answers directed back to the teacher. So, classroom discourse is stuck in a pattern of teacher-student-teacher-student, leading too many students in a passive role.
  • Instead of a simple Q&A, we want to see students engaging directly with one another's ideas. This means more structured protocols for peer-to-peer discussion (like Turn and Talks) where students are responsible for synthesizing, challenging, and expanding on their classmates' contributions.
  • This is the core of students taking intellectual ownership. When students are talking and wrestling with the content, they are actively constructing meaning.
The second trend relates to the gradual increase of student independence and allowing students to productively struggle. I’m noticing that there is a tendency to provide universal, whole-class scaffolds that are not necessary for every student and, consequently, limit the necessary "productive struggle" for those who are ready for more independence.

When the reins are held too tightly - providing too many graphic organizers, breaking down tasks into excessively small procedural steps, or providing detailed sentence starters for every response, students are inadvertently kept in a state of dependence and we limit opportunity for learning. To push all students, there has to be a deliberate and strategic removal of unnecessary supports.
  • We want to see a clear fading of whole-class scaffolds and shifting toward differentiated scaffolding, only once we see a student really needs it. This is how we build true academic independence and intellectual stamina.
  • When students are grappling with challenging material and successfully completing complex tasks without heavy support, they are demonstrating high levels of cognitive engagement and resourcefulness.
So, as you plan your lessons this week, ask yourself:
  • Where can I deliberately stop talking and require two students to respond to each other instead of to me? 
  • What support did I provide last week that I can take away this week to force a higher level of thinking for all students?
I look forward to continuing to discuss these trends with you and seeing these shifts in action! This will be our focus during upcoming Instructional Rounds and our first PPO on October 15th (more on this below).


UPCOMING DATES
  • MON 13OCT25 - Indigenous People's Day/Italian Heritage Day
  • WED 15OCT25 - School Based Support Team Appreciation Day (Psych, Soc Worker, Fam Worker, OT/PT)
  • WED 15OCT25 - PPO
  • MON 20OCT25 - Diwali - No School
  • THU 23OCT25 - Future Ready Kick-off Celebration, 5pm
  • FRI 31OCT25 - Halloween

*All Student Engagement activities for the year will now be listed in this spreadsheet and on the UAI School Calendar! Thanks to Shan, Jen, Sue and the RPET team for bring our community to life through their planning of these events.


UPCOMING TRIPS

Trip Requests.  Here's the trip request protocol...
Fall College Trips: Seniors will have first priority, however the trips are also open to juniors.
  • Thursday 10/9 - UFT College & Career Fair, 10 am
  • Thursday 10/23 - Queens College, 10am
  • Tuesday 10/28 - Lehman College, 11am
Wednesday 15OCT: 7th Grade Trip to National Museum of the American Indian

Wednesday 22OCT: Digital Marketing Trip

Thursday 30OCT: Venture Capital Trip

Friday 31OCT: Senior Trip to Fright Fest

Wednesday 19NOV: Hamilton Trip


FUTURE READY HIGHLIGHTS

Work-Based Learning Coordinator Staffed: Thank you to Phillan for stepping up as the Work-Based Learning (WBL) Coordinator and Pauline for joining the WBL committee. These two will be planning experiences for our students to explore diverse career fields, engage with industry professionals, and prepare for the workforce through resume writing workshops, mock interviews, and application parties. Their passion for preparing students for life after UAI is clear, and we're excited to see what they do!

Upcoming FRNYC Events: 

WBL Career Exposure Trips. Through NYC Service's speed mentoring program, all students in the Career Explorations course will select one trip to attend. After learning about each field and connecting with current employees, students will receive 1:1 mentoring to discuss their post-secondary goals and backwards plan the steps needed to get there. We'll share trip lists once they are finalized!
  • October 22nd from 10-12 (January Digital - Marketing Agency)
  • October 30th from 3-5 (Venture Capital firm)
  • November 20th from 10-12 (Climate Tech Company - Energy Hub)
  • November 25th from 1-3 (LVMH)

FRNYC Kickoff Celebration. On October 23rd from 5-6:30pm in the cafeteria. Join UAI 8/9 graders & their families (and prospective students!) to learn about FRNYC and the Pre-Nursing and Education Pathways available to students at UAI. Light snacks and beverages provided.
  • Email Kelly if you'd like to support with the event - we're looking for 3-4 people to assist.


TO DO THIS WEEK

PPO is scheduled. On October 15th, we will be having our first PPO (Principal Performance Observation) with Dr. Buffie Whitfield, who is the Executive Director of School Support & Operations in Superintendent Fred Walsh's office. As the schedule becomes more clear we will share out the agenda for the day - please do stay tuned. For now, in preparation for the visit you should be working on:
  1. Linking all lesson plans into your pacing guides 
  2. Making sure your lessons center student thinking (i.e. students should be doing the lion's share of the work for the majority of the period - there shouldn't be any stretch of time longer than a few minutes where kids are listening passively.  They should be thinking, writing, talking, or discussing as much as possible.
  3. Ensuring unnecessary scaffolds are removed so that all students are engaged in critical thinking throughout your lesson
Two Visits This Week. We have been selected to represent the UA in TWO back-to-back visits on 08OCT. Please be prepared to see lots of guests walking through the building. Thanks in advance to all who are participating and helping to make these visits a success. 

SDC is Starting Up. The School Development Committee is starting back up. Join us to plan PDs (we will focus on Student-led IEP planning) monthly at 7:45am on the third Thursday of the month in room 301. Our first meeting will be October 16th!

Instructional Rounds start on October 15! As promised, all teachers will engage in Instructional Round Cycles and our first round starts next week! Our focus for this round is on our special populations and instructional routines. We will send out more info in the coming week.

Please see below for our schedule and reach out with questions.
  • October 14:  Sarah R, Phillan, Tom M, Jake, Thomas, Roger, Marsha, Sue, Megan
  • October 24:  Mike, Freida, Patti, Jasmine, Yasmeen, Mayisha, Celeste, Camryn, Judy
  • October 27:  Denyda, Fatima, Matt, Mary, Laura, Brett, Martine, Noelle, Liza
  • October 29:  Sarah M, Elena, Shan, Amanda, JRob, Tom W, Patricia, Allison, Kelly

Join RPET. Please join our meeting this week on Wednesday at 3pm in room 403. We will be discussing goals for the year and student employment. 

Sign up for Brooklyn PTA Fun Run! Every year, there is a Brooklyn PTA Fun Run in Prospect Park to raise money for PTAs at schools around Brooklyn, and UAI will have a team running this year! The race is a 5k Fun Run around the Prospect Park loop, starting from the Lefrak Center at 10:00am on Saturday, October 25th (participants should arrive at 9:00AM to pick up race bibs). All are welcome to join our team and support our school, whether you plan to run, run/walk, walk, scooter, bike, or just cheer our team on at the finish line! Race info can be found here.

Race registration costs $25 plus a small fee, but free tickets are available to those for whom this would be a hardship - just let me know and I'll reach out to the race organizers. Our school needs to register a certain amount of participants to get a share of the proceeds, so spread the word to staff and families so we can have a great turnout! You can register to be a part of the UAI team here. 

Please reach out to Mike if you have any questions. I hope you'll be able to join! 

MAP Testing Make-ups. Reminder to get to those last students who still need to make-up their MAP exams! We MUST get to 100% completion.   

Purchasing Requests. In an effort to better track and streamline purchasing, we ask that you fill in this form for all purchasing requests. You can find the form on our staff Google Classroom as well.


PER SESSION POSTINGS

FOR ALL PER SESSION JOBS:  You must apply by completing THIS FORM

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